


Good Crab Papa

by UngluckLiebhaber



Category: Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Anaphylaxis, Gen, allergy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 15:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7579471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UngluckLiebhaber/pseuds/UngluckLiebhaber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan mistakenly eats some shellfish at lunch because his friends are idiots. Veronica saves the day, and his life. He realizes a few things along the way.</p>
<p>Love is still love, even if neither party is willing to admit it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Crab Papa

**Author's Note:**

> This could fit anywhere between after Shelly's party and before about mid first season if you imagine that Wallace decided not to eat lunch with her that day.
> 
> I don't post a lot of stuff because i don't have much confidence in my ability to write, but this idea wouldn't leave me and since it was all written i figured why not. This is actually the first thing i have posted on AO3 so far. So please, if you hate it tell me where i went wrong and what i can do better.

_Lunch, that forty five minute period every day where one third of the school gathers in a single area. If examined closely enough, Darwinism can be seen in its most simplistic form. Everyone separates into their own little groups, the jocks with the jocks, the nerds with the nerds, the ‘09ers with the ‘09ers, and if anyone takes one single misstep, shows even the slightest hint of weakness, they will be eaten alive. It’s so cliché it’s almost painful. Maybe that is a positive side of ostracization, it no longer matters where I sit, or what I do. I no longer care._

So it was that Veronica Mars did what she chose, and sat where she pleased. Where she pleased happened to be the table directly across from the table of those who once called her friend, those who had since declared her public enemy number one. She sat there to watch them, know thy enemy, but also so they had to watch her as well, so they would know that she was still there, so she could be sure that they were fully aware that they couldn’t scare her away that easily.

Of course, on that particular day, by the time she sat down with her lunch there was already a flurry of activity over there. Someone had ordered take out, because the Pirate Points system was always classist and elitist at its core. Pizza, maybe Chinese, hell it wouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone if it were both. Twenty minutes of staring, idly chewing, and working on the mental list of which idiots deserved payback and exactly what the most prudent form of said payback would be, and suddenly the world went silent.

Not a sound could be heard, save for the single shriek which could likely have been heard clear across the courtyard to the back of the parking lot. The noise had served its purpose though, it had gotten the attention of everyone within earshot. As her vision focused back to reality from her daydreams of revenge, Ashley Banks came into focus. She was standing on the far side of the table, the side that couldn’t be seen from where Veronica sat, with a hand over her mouth.

There has never been much that would actually warrant that kind of response, at least not without being labeled as overdramatic. She likely would have ignored the whole situation if she hadn’t noticed the utter stillness of everyone within the vicinity. No one else at the table had made a movement, it seemed almost surreal. Almost everyone was standing completely still as if movement may bring about death, the tiny minority to move were doing so backwards so slowly it seemed, to a casual observer, as if there was no movement at all, as if they could not decide whether they needed to be as far away as possible or they had to watch everything unfold.

It took almost a full ten seconds for Veronica’s brain to fully catch up to what she was seeing, the absolute strangeness of the situation throwing her through a loop. Her insatiable curiosity got the better of her soon after. She sprang up from her seat on the lunch table bench to carefully, but swiftly, move around the table to see what had caused the commotion. When she was finally able to take in the full extent of the scene, her jaw dropped wide open.

There Logan Echolls lay, on the cement behind the bench he had been sitting at just a minute before. Different scenarios began to flutter through Veronica’s mind. _Maybe he fell backwards and hit his head. Maybe he finally got himself into a fight that he couldn’t win. Maybe his ego finally got so big that it weighed his head down enough, and he just toppled over._ So, maybe that last thought was more wishful thinking than an actual possibility, but it didn’t matter because when she looked again she realized none of her ideas were anywhere close to correct. There he laid, splayed out on the concrete with blue swollen lips, eyes bulging out almost comically, clawing at anything he could reach to try to help him breathe in much needed oxygen; his throat, Duncan Kane’s leg, Caitlin Ford’s arm, Ashley Banks’ feet. No one made a single move to try to help him.

Before she could even fully contemplate the scene in front of her, or the fact that Logan Echolls, her main tormenter since her best friend died, was laying there in front of her dying while everyone stared, her body started to move closer. The closer she got, the faster she went. As soon as she approached the table, Veronica began asking questions and barking orders.

“What the hell happened?”  
“What did he eat?”  
“Someone get Clemmons and the nurse.”  
“Has anyone even called 911? Seriously, someone call 911!”  
“Where the fuck is his backpack?”

She knew she was getting agitated, and that agitation would only make the situation worse, but she was having a difficult time reigning it in. She couldn’t believe that these brain dead rich kids could call themselves someone’s friend, and still just sit around and watch him slowly die. What little hold she still maintained on her calm, sanity, and perspective was quickly shattered however, when none other than Dick Casablancas broke out of his dull state of shock and answered her questions.

“Who the fuck put you in charge Veronica? What, you don’t get enough of stalking Duncan, you’re starting in on Logan now too? There’s no way I’m giving you his backpack for some creepy shrine, or something. He’ll be fine, he just needs the Heinrich maneuver.”

Veronica moved herself between Logan and Dick as he began moving to the side of the table where Logan lay. She gave herself a second to put Dick’s mini tirade through her finely honed, mental, Moron to English translator before she finally lost it. “How do you function with so much of your brain missing Dick? He’s not choking, that is anaphylaxis, the **Heimlich** maneuver won’t help it actually might make it worse. He can’t breathe because he is having an allergic reaction to something he ate.” Her rant momentarily faltered when she felt something being pushed against her leg. Duncan was nudging Logan’s backpack over to her. Her shock was momentary, but painfully clear. “So what did he eat for lunch?” She asked again as she bent down to look through the bag. “Anyone? Shellfish? Did anyone order anything with shellfish that he might have accidently gotten?” 

“No one ordered any fish Veronica Mars, the closest thing to seafood anyone got was crab Rangoon.”

Veronica looked up from the backpack momentarily, utter contempt apparent in every fiber of her being. “Did you guys get a two for one deal? His and hers lobotomies? Crab is shellfish.” She finished going through the last pocket of the backpack and cursed, loudly. “Do you have a god damn death wish Logan? Fuck! Does anyone have an Epi-Pen?”

After pausing for a moment, hoping someone would be able to help, she snatched up her own bag from where she dropped it. When she had gotten the new bag at the beginning of the year she had simply dumped all of the stuff from her old bag into it. She could only hope that she still had the device she had taken to carrying around when they were still friends, and that it wasn’t expired.

Just as her last shred of hope was about to burst into flames, her hand closed around the large-ish pen like device. She had taken to carrying one around years before after Logan had come close to eating a lobster puff that the caterers his dad had hired for a party had made. It had scared his mom into a panic, and she had agreed that if Logan refused to carry an emergency Epi-Pen, the next best thing was for one of his closest friends to have one, just in case. Neither Duncan nor Lilly wanted to carry it around, or be taught how to properly use it, so Veronica accepted the responsibility and had carried one around with her ever since.

Just as she stabbed Logan’s leg with the business end of the pen, Meg Manning ran up to the table followed closely by both Vice Principal Clemmons and the school nurse. They quickly took over the scene, and Veronica returned to her lunch, shaking only slightly. Within a few minutes, an ambulance arrived and took Logan off, presumably to the hospital for further treatment.

   
Veronica had spent most of the rest of the day asking herself why she did what she did. Why she had taken it upon herself to save Logan’s psychotic ass. There were only a few plausible reasons that she would let herself acknowledge. That she had already lost so much, so she was not willing to watch an old friend, even if it was Logan, die right in front of her when she had the ability to save him. That Duncan was still so messed up from Lilly’s death, he might not survive Logan’s. And lastly, that Lilly would never have wanted her to let Logan die if there was any way to prevent it

After school Veronica found and thanked Meg for apparently being the only ‘09er who wasn’t a completely self-involved moron. She had learned that Logan was indeed taken to the hospital after the paramedics arrived, and that it was “probably Neptune Memorial, not Balboa County Hospital because, well, you know” of course the unspoken statement was that it was generally accepted that the private Neptune Memorial Hospital was better than the public Balboa County Hospital. Whether Meg believed it was actually better or not, it was the ‘09er hospital of choice.

Veronica insisted to herself that she was only going to the hospital to make sure that Logan was not dead, and that her good deed was not in vain. After successfully managing to talk her way past the front desk, and security, she stopped short at the door to the room he was in. She took a breath, preparing herself for the ugliness that was sure to befall her on the other side of the door, and pushed it open.

There he was, laying in the uncomfortable looking hospital bed, with a nasal cannula pumping oxygen into his nose and an I.V. line pumping something else into a vein in the back of his hand. He looked tired, but okay. For a moment, she was sure he was sleeping. She was just about to slip back out the door, assured that he was alive, when he slowly opened his eyes and looked straight into hers.

“Leaving so soon Veronica? Before you had a chance to yell at me, kick me while I’m down, finish the job, or something? That’s so unlike you.”

“Nope, just making sure you are still alive. I guess despite everything, I don’t actually want to see you dead.” At his shocked, and slightly disbelieving look she shrugged. “I know, it surprised me too.”

After a few minutes of awkward silence she decided to take her leave and was just reaching for the handle when he piped up again. “You don’t have to go, if you don’t want to I mean. It’s not like this place is crawling with people to talk to, and as you can see, no one’s busting down the door to hang out.”

“I noticed that, you must be going crazy. It’s not like you are exactly known for your ability to be able to sit in silence for long periods of time. Maybe Dick and everyone think I’ve contaminated you, put something other than epinephrine in that Epi-Pen, or maybe they’re just having tandem aneurysms trying to figure out what the word lobotomy means.”

Logan’s eyes went wide for a second. “You? You saved my life?” Veronica just shrugged and Logan continued. “I thought for sure it was Duncan, or maybe Clemmons. No one told me.”

“Hey, I’m just glad that old Epi-Pen your mom gave me was still within its expiration date. Like I said, surprisingly, I like you better alive. On that note though, what the hell even happened? You were always so careful before.”

The two talked for almost an hour, at first about the incident at school. Logan explained, he hadn’t ordered the food, and Shelly and Caitlin had insisted that the Rangoon was just Wontons, he hadn’t realized what it was until he had already bit into it. He had tried to ask more questions about what had happened after he collapsed, and why she still carried around his old Epi-Pen, but she deflected and ignored each one. The conversation quickly turned to just talking about anything. It was the first actual conversation they had had in so long. Eventually, Logan’s parents showed up and she finally left to go help her dad with things that needed to get done. For that short moment in time, it was almost like they were old friends again. The conversation was animated, and fun. The silences were comfortable. No trace of the usual hostility that marred their every interaction since Lilly’s death.

Logan almost couldn’t believe it as she walked out of the room. She had saved his life. After everything they had done to one another. After everything he had put her through. She still carried around the medication that could save him, and she still cared enough to use it. Even if she had refused to talk about it, they had been so close for years, he could see the truth just by looking at her face. He could figure out the real reason she had done it easily enough, she cared. Somewhere in her mind she still cared about him, and what they once meant to each other. When his life was on the line, she could still be trusted, she was still there for him.

Old feelings, long buried, started to surface. His perspective shifted in front of his eyes. It was like a shroud was being pulled from his face. The shroud of Lilly’s death, and Veronica’s betrayal. The shroud of anger and hurt. When his vision was finally clear, he could finally see it, the truth. He could see the loyalty and the love that Veronica was offering. Even if he was rather certain that she would deny the latter at the very least, he knew it was there. 

He had made an art form out of lying to the world, however he refused to lie to himself. After everything, those five simple words ‘I like you better alive’ meant everything to him. If it hadn’t been for her, he likely would have been dead. He had to admit to himself that those feelings popping up inside himself were not that of an old friendship bubbling up. That was love, pure and simple. She had proven her loyalty, now he knew he had to prove his. He loved her, and he would do everything in his power to earn her love in return. She had saved his life when she had every reason not to. That was all that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope this works for this 'fic challenge' because i'm really not sure. I just kept thinking, but they love each other so much, look she still carried the epipen around and still saved his life even after everything.


End file.
